If I stay in the Hehuan Sect, I'll live off the pampered daughters of the Heavenly Pride Sect.

As she crawled along the underground river into a half-collapsed side hall, a painful groan caught her attention.

A disciple of the Haoran Sword Sect was lying beside a broken pillar, clutching a wound on his thigh and panting heavily.

The person was covered in blood, pretending to have been severely injured by a monster and was powerless to resist.

He watched Lin Miaoyin approach as if she were a lifeline, and pleaded earnestly for her help.

"Fellow Daoist, please wait. I am Zhang Qing from the Haoran Sword Sect. I was ambushed by a demonic beast and am seriously injured."

"If you are willing to lend a helping hand, I, Zhang, will certainly repay you with two thousand low-grade spirit stones and a Xuan Iron sword."

His brows were furrowed as he spoke, perfectly portraying the magnanimity and weakness of someone from a prestigious family who had fallen on hard times.

Lin Miaoyin merely stopped and sniffed the air, a cold smile rising in her heart.

The cheap incense used to mask the real smell of blood immediately exposed the hypocrite's lie.

Her emotionless gaze swept over the standard-issue sword hidden at the other man's waist, and a deep-seated hatred immediately welled up in her heart.

It was this sect that forced Mo Chengyue, who was willing to shield her from a sword, to his death on the rocky hill.

Lin Miaoyin pretended to be persuaded and slowly stepped forward to take his arm.

"Since Fellow Daoist Zhang has spoken up, and we are both on the righteous side, I naturally cannot stand by and watch him die."

She spoke in a low voice, her hand already touching the neck of the pipa.

Just as the disciple's eyes suddenly changed, and the dagger hidden in his sleeve was about to pierce her abdomen.

Lin Miaoyin did not back down, but directly swung the broken-stringed pipa base in her hand.

The heavy blow, imbued with the profound spiritual power of a Core Formation stage cultivator, slammed solidly into the man's crown.

The sound of bones shattering was crisp and clear in the empty hall.

Brain matter and blood splattered on the shattered stone slab, creating a shocking red flower.

Zhang Qing didn't even have time to cry for help before his body fell into the muddy water.

She stepped over the gradually cooling corpse, her chest churning with the pleasure of revenge and extreme disgust for the hypocrisy of the righteous path.

She stripped the other person of their storage bag, looting all the high-grade spirit stones and pills inside, and even taking the flying sword.

The defensive array patterns inside the side hall had long been damaged over time, and the floor was covered with withered debris.

Following the faint fluctuations of spiritual energy, Lin Miaoyin found a collapsed stone door deep within the ruins.

She pushed aside the heavy stone slab and discovered an extremely hidden underground training chamber.

In the center of the stone platform was a fruit that was completely black, with a strong pure yin energy lingering on its surface, and even a layer of white frost had condensed around it.

It was a Xuanming Ghost Vine Fruit that perfectly matched her Heavenly Demon Dance technique, a rare treasure that was hard to find in the outside world.

After many days of desolation, a slight ripple finally stirred in her heart. This was the greatest opportunity she had encountered since she had been on the run for an unknown period of time.

Without any hesitation, she immediately set up three layers of warning arrays and a barrier to isolate divine sense at the entrance of the cultivation room.

She sat cross-legged on the cold stone platform and swallowed the ghost vine fruit that exuded coldness, hoping to break through the bottleneck in her cultivation realm that had been stagnant for a long time.

The powerful and unusually cold medicinal force was like a wild horse that had broken free, mercilessly tearing at her fragile meridians.

A bone-chilling coldness spread from the dantian to the meridians throughout the body, even freezing the blood.

The immense pain caused her body to convulse uncontrollably, her forehead was covered in a layer of cold sweat, and her fingernails dug deeply into her palms.

The clarity of mind was almost lost under the impact of the medicine, and a hallucination of demonic possession appeared uncontrollably deep in the sea of ​​consciousness.

The sky in the illusion was blood red, and countless righteous cultivators and demonic cultivators surrounded her, each with a mocking and greedy expression on their face.

The elders of the Haoran Sword Sect pointed their blood-stained swords at her nose and cursed her as the most vile witch in the cultivation world.

The protectors of the Heavenly Demon Sect laughed wildly as they tore at her skirt, shouting that they would refine her into a furnace for people to play with.

The surrounding flames burned ever brighter, and her limbs seemed to be bound to the pillars of fire by invisible chains, unable to move.

The stinging pain in her mind, accompanied by a feeling of her soul being detached, caused her to let out a painful growl.

The inner demons were like a persistent carbuncle, slowly eroding her remaining sanity and attempting to drag her into an abyss of no return.

Just as her will was about to collapse and she was about to sink into the dark mire.

The phantom of the boy who had shielded her from a fatal sword strike with his not-so-broad back on the rocky hill once again pierced through the layers of mist.

The junior brother, who was always timid and hesitant, turned around covered in blood and gave her a smile that was more like a grimace.

His lips moved silently, urging her, "Senior sister, you must live on."

This illusory figure became the only light she could grasp in the mire of despair.

Lin Miaoyin cursed her foolish junior brother in her heart, tightly hugging the broken-stringed pipa in her arms.

Fingernails scratched white marks on the wooden body of the instrument, and a tear mixed with mud slid down the corner of his eye.

She bit her lip until warm blood oozed out, fueled by her unwavering determination.

He mobilized the remaining spiritual energy in his dantian to forcefully suppress the violent, cold medicinal power.

The two forces struggled to merge within the body, continuously washing away impurities through the great circulation of Qi.

A muffled explosion echoed through the underground training room, accompanied by a shower of stone chips.

A powerful aura erupted from Lin Miaoyin's body, shattering the cultivation barrier that had troubled her for so long.

She finally crossed that insurmountable barrier and entered the late stage of Core Formation, her spiritual power becoming several times stronger than before.

She slowly opened her eyes, a bewitching light swirling deep within her pupils, her entire aura completely transformed.

She took out several purifying talismans from her storage bag and washed the dirt and blood off her body.

She draped a pure black Taoist robe, which she had found among the spoils of war, over her body, the belt accentuating her slender figure.

That aloof and unapproachable aura returned to the Holy Maiden of the Hehuan Sect.

She put away her pipa, confidently strode out of the underground cave, and prepared to find a way out of the ruins.

The ruined corridor ahead was silent, with sunlight filtering through the cracks in the ceiling and casting dappled shadows.

The moment she stepped around the corner, her light steps faltered, and her breathing involuntarily slowed.

On a high platform ten zhang away, lay the massive corpse of a high-level demon beast, its cuts clean and smooth.

A man clad in black and gold armor sat imposingly on the pile of flesh and blood, his cloak billowing in the wind behind him.

The man held a clean white silk handkerchief in his hand, slowly wiping the bloodstains from his finger bones.

The oppressive aura emanating from the monster's corpse was enough to prove its power in life, yet this person tore it apart with his bare hands.

Hearing footsteps, he slowly raised his head, revealing a handsome face that exuded a chillingly wicked aura.

That greedy gaze was fixed on Lin Miaoyin through the air, scrutinizing her with an extremely oppressive intensity.

His gaze swept unabashedly over her slender waist.

The young master of the Heavenly Demon Sect casually tossed the silk handkerchief he had used to wipe the blood onto the monster's corpse.

He looked at Lin Miaoyin, who was radiant with health after breaking through her cultivation level, and revealed a smile that showed he had everything under control.

"Your Highness, Holy Maiden of the Joyful Union Sect, I have been waiting for you here for a long time."

His voice was soft, yet it carried an irresistible sense of oppression, making the surrounding air feel heavy.

"You picked a really good route around here; I almost lost track of it."

Lin Miaoyin did not reply, but her slender fingers quietly rested on the neck of the pipa.

Her beautiful phoenix eyes were full of vigilance, and the spiritual power of the late-stage Core Formation stage within her body surged to its limit.

"Young Master, you have quite the interest. Instead of seizing the extraordinary opportunities in the core area, you choose to take a stroll in this godforsaken ruin."

She spoke tentatively, her tone cold and distant, trying to find a chance to escape.

The young master of the Heavenly Demon Sect stood up from the corpse of the demon beast, his black and gold armor emitting a chilling metallic clang.

"No opportunity is as important as Your Highness, after all, only you, in your wholeness, are worthy of the ultimate purpose of my journey to the ruins."